of abuses arid vices which creep into the Church; for although the Pontiff can of himself make laws for the whole Church, nevertheless these things are far more acceptably carried through when the Supreme Pontiff makes such laws with the assent of a General Council.'[1]
Even in the natural order, the benefits are obvious. More is seen by many eyes; and the conflict of many opinions, when men are scattered, is allayed by their coming together in counsel. Councils have a special efficacy against heresies and schisms; above all, when the authority of the Pontiff is the point chiefly denied, as in the Greek and the Protestant separations. The decisions of such Councils, if they do not satisfy the authors of heresy and of schism, nevertheless confirm both truth and unity, and set a mark upon their opposites which wither their growth and ensure their fall.
Every General Council has been convened to meet some special heresy or evil of the day. The first six were convened to condemn heresies, the seventh to condemn the Iconoclasts, the eighth for the cause of Photius, the ninth for the recovery of the Holy Land, the tenth against the claims of anti-popes, the eleventh against the Waldenses, the twelfth against heresies and for the Holy Land, the thirteenth against the usurpation of the Emperor Frederick II., the fourteenth against the errors of the Greeks, the fifteenth against various heresies, the sixteenth for the reunion
- ↑ Bellarm. de Conciliis, lib. i. c. ix.
